re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?(Posted by Baloo on 12/12/12 at 11:28 am to Sophandros)

quote:41 is nearing 50?

Yes. We're in the final decade of that sample of a half century, and we've moved backwards in popularity since 1977 for the domestic league (though almost all other indica are up).

I think we're creating international soccer fans, which is cool, but doesn't help the MLS that much. I don't see the MLS becoming another EPL. Because of cable, we can watch high level of soccer pretty easily. And its kind of cool to do it on a Saturday morning.

Finally, I really like soccer. I used to play, I've been to an MLS Cup, and NCAA title game, an actual women's match, a World Cup qualifier, a Euro Cup match, and an EPL match. I think it's a great sport and I enjoy it immensely. But I have to say, I find American soccer fans downright impossible to tolerate. Just the most insecure, whining hipster douchebags on the planet. The problem is not that people haven't been exposed to soccer. I swear to you, it's not. Stop trying to sell soccer as sports vegetables (it's good for you!)

re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?(Posted by hendersonshands on 12/12/12 at 11:33 am to Moustache)

The thing soccer has going against them right now is that it's very expensive to play at a high level, but that is in the process of changing. When I was growing up, you had to play select soccer in order to face any real competition. The MLS is in the process of building academies for their teams. As these academies grow, the teams will continue to improve until we have a league full of young, homegrown American talent everywhere.

The academies will be huge in big cities where super athletic kids will be offered an opportunity to get into these programs at a very young age. The one thing holding them back, is that they'd have to give up every other sport.

re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?(Posted by Sophandros on 12/12/12 at 11:37 am to Baloo)

quote:I think we're creating international soccer fans, which is cool, but doesn't help the MLS that much. I don't see the MLS becoming another EPL. Because of cable, we can watch high level of soccer pretty easily. And its kind of cool to do it on a Saturday morning.

Finally, I really like soccer. I used to play, I've been to an MLS Cup, and NCAA title game, an actual women's match, a World Cup qualifier, a Euro Cup match, and an EPL match. I think it's a great sport and I enjoy it immensely. But I have to say, I find American soccer fans downright impossible to tolerate. Just the most insecure, whining hipster douchebags on the planet. The problem is not that people haven't been exposed to soccer. I swear to you, it's not. Stop trying to sell soccer as sports vegetables (it's good for you!)

I know you're just speaking to the thread in general and not just me because I happen to agree with you.

quote:Too late. MMA is already huge in this country....only going to get bigger

Disagree...I think we have seen/are seeing its peak. It will NEVER have consistent mainstream exposure. It will have good sized rabid followings but at the end of the day there are more and more fighters making following it more and more difficult and the masses don't want to see guys try and submit one another.

quote:Too late. MMA is already huge in this country....only going to get bigger

I wouldn't say it is "huge". It is up-and-coming, but nowhere near the popularity of the MLB, NBA, or NFL, or even college football in the United States.

The highest rated UFC on FOX broadcast was the event that had the Heavyweight Championship. That event averaged 5.7 million viewers. A very good number, but for comparison, Notre Dame vs. USC was the highest rated college football game of the year, and it averaged 16 million viewers.

Big difference.

Steelers vs. Broncos this year drew 27.9 million viewers.

In fact, the top 25 most-watched NFL games this season have all been over 20 million viewers.

re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?(Posted by PrimeTime Money on 12/12/12 at 12:21 pm to hendersonshands)

quote:The thing soccer has going against them right now is that it's very expensive to play at a high level, but that is in the process of changing. When I was growing up, you had to play select soccer in order to face any real competition. The MLS is in the process of building academies for their teams. As these academies grow, the teams will continue to improve until we have a league full of young, homegrown American talent everywhere. The academies will be huge in big cities where super athletic kids will be offered an opportunity to get into these programs at a very young age. The one thing holding them back, is that they'd have to give up every other sport.

The problem with soccer in the U.S. is that there are plenty of other more popular sports to play.

In almost every other country around the world, soccer is king. Therefore, there is already an interest in soccer as a sport. In order to improve, things like training centers have to be built in order to build talent. But the sport of soccer is already the most popular sport in those countries. It's just a matter of improving the talent by improving facilities, coaches, etc.

In the United States, you can build all of the academies and programs you want, but soccer still will not be getting the best talent out there when there are several other sports that are king.

re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?(Posted by pvilleguru on 12/12/12 at 12:29 pm to PrimeTime Money)

quote:In the United States, you can build all of the academies and programs you want, but soccer still will not be getting the best talent out there when there are several other sports that are king.

It does put us at a disadvantage from that aspect, but we just need to get to the point where we have 23-30 quality players at any time. Hockey isn't one of the 3 most popular sports in the US, but we can still put out a team today that can beat any country in the world.

re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?(Posted by joey barton on 12/12/12 at 12:41 pm to PrimeTime Money)

You have to consider that soccer isn't always in direct competition for players with major American sports and that our available resources for sports and our population far exceed 99.9% of the world.

With better training, our current talent pool, plus minor expansion through increased accessibility to the sport at a high level, is more than adequate, and is truly already adequate, to field a consistently competitive national team and stock a reasonably strong domestic league.

ETA: Not that I'd ever argue that soccer was poised to become a MAJOR player in American sports.